Americans have become a nation of grazers and snackers. Changes in family structure, including more working mothers, more single-parent households and more single-person households, mean less time to cook and, often, staggered meal times. Eating has evolved into an "anytime, anyplace" activity. Meals are often eaten on the run, and people tend to snack their way through the day. These changing eating patterns have produced a demand for "user-friendly" quick meals consumers can hold in their hands while walking, driving, or even shopping.
Although many social critics believe that the pace of civilization is ever increasing, such convenience foods and the need for them have been around a long time. For example, spectators at sporting events have been eating hot dogs on buns for many years, and a number of portable foods "on a stick" have been developed over the years, including corn dogs, ice cream, frozen fruit juice, frozen alcoholic beverages (see U.S. Pat. No. 4,350,712), friedcake (see U.S. Pat. No. 4,144,356), burritos (see U.S. Pat. No. 4,447,457) and pizza (see U.S. Pat. No. 4,966,781).
A product has been marketed for many years, which comprises ice cream in a tubular cardboard container with a piston underlying it. The ice cream is selectively advanced out of the tube by pushing a stick attached to the bottom of the piston. A similar confession holding device is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,962,470.
Despite the advantages provided by such food products, there is still room for improvement with respect to a number of aspects.
Many foods on a stick have the stick penetrating the food as an anchor. It would be preferable to avoid this configuration, as the consumer can be injured by inadvertently biting the stick. Moreover, some of the food adheres to the stick during consumption, thus frustrating particularly hungry consumers.
Furthermore, the length of the stick outside of a food product mounted on or above a stick can raise packaging and transportation costs. The stick increases the effective volume occupied by the product. In addition, care must be taken to avoid damaging the stick, lest the food product be rendered stickless, and thus unmerchantable.
Moreover, portable foods in general, and foods mounted on or above a stick in particular, have not been particularly conducive to a healthy lifestyle. While it might be preferable from a health perspective to sit down to a balanced meal served on a plate, convenience foods need not be nutritionally inferior to conventional foods. Until now, however, most portable foods, including foods mounted on or above a stick, such as cotton candy, lollipops, candy apples, ice cream pops and the like, have been designed as special treats rather than diet staples. Thus, there has been a need for more healthful portable food products, including those mounted on or above a stick.
Foods mounted on or above a stick have mostly been confined to solids for obvious reasons. It would be preferable if foods having significant liquid components, such as sauces, dressings, melted cheese, syrup and/or fruit compotes, could be successfully mounted and served mounted on or above a stick, as well.
Thus, foods such as pasta, pancakes, omelettes, crepes, wantons and blintzes have not been provided on or above a stick in a hand-held food package.
All references cited herein are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.